Hello Sweetie
by Doctor McFly
Summary: Episode Five: The Doctor and Marty receive a set of coordinates on the psychic paper, leading them to the ruins of Machu Picchu and a time loop they'll need to solve. TBC in Episode Six: Restart!
1. Ding!

(Welcome to my episodic crossover fic. This is episode five, and while you can start reading here, you might want to visit my profile to get the whole story with Episode One: Frozen in Time)

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 1

Saturday

December 25th

1773

Cleaning up a European city of a zombie outbreak was about as easy as it sounds. They spent a week essentially poisoning rivers, water reserves and food stores with the cure the Doctor had synthesized. Then there was the matter of rounding up the remaining zombies and taking them out with force.

It was, by far, the weirdest Christmas he had ever spent.

Marty had barely slept the past seven days. The few moments he did have to relax he would curl up next to Jennifer and try to drift off. Then finally the Doctor couldn't find any remaining radiation.

"Time to go!" He grinned at Marty.

"Are you sure? Or are you 'this type of radiation can't hurt humans' sure?"

"All right, all right. We all make our mistakes."

"So where to next?"

"I thought we'd just tick off the next name on your Doctor's letter."

"Let's do it."

Suddenly there was a noise, like a little chime or bell, a sort of a ding.

"Did the TARDIS just ding?" Marty asked.

It dinged again.

"It did ding," the Doctor smiled.

"Is that a bad ding? Tell me that doesn't mean there's still radiation out there."

"It doesn't! That is a very good ding!"

"What does it mean?"

"I've been monitoring Jennifer, so we can keep track of her progress."

Marty looked over the consol. Jennifer's body was still lifeless. "But… nothing's changed."

"But it has! She's experienced a millisecond of time since we've begun."

"A millisecond?" Marty looked disappointed.

"Oh don't look so depressed. Try to focus on what this means."

"What _does_ this mean?"

"It's working!" The Doctor put on his glasses and started reading information streaming over a monitor. "The time vortex is putting her back into sync."

"Yeah, but… by a millisecond. Aren't there like a hundred of those in a second?"

"More like a thousand," the Doctor coughed.

"A thousand!"

"You're not looking at the positive! We can save her! She can be saved! Isn't that good news?"

"Of course it's good news! It's just… one millisecond in two weeks? I guess I just didn't _actually_ think it would take years."

The Doctor didn't have to do a quick calculation; he already knew that at this rate Marty would be over 55 years old by the time Jennifer was back to sync with time. It was unfair to ask anyone to wait that long for someone and he almost suggested taking Marty home… except he had already gotten used to Marty being there, had started to enjoy his company.

"You don't have to stay," the Doctor began.

Marty looked away. "Yeah… I know…"

"Oh."

"Oh?" Marty turned back to the Doctor, who pulled the psychic paper out of his jacket pocket.

"Someone's sent me a message."

"What? So that thing's an ID that doubles as a fax machine?"

"Psychic paper can pick up all sorts of things drifting through time."

"And what's it saying?"

"It's giving me coordinates… and an eerily specific time," he started punching things into his computer and then looked at Marty over his glasses. "Let me look at that letter again."

OOO

Tuesday

July 9th

1811

They stepped out of the TARDIS onto the bright green hill surrounded by mist-enshrouded mountains. Dull grey ruins Marty had never heard of or seen before dotted the grass, but they were expansive. It looked like an entire city that time had simply forgotten.

"What did you call this place again?" Marty was back to wearing his red shirt and jeans, a fact he was particularly happy about because not only was he no longer wearing clothing splattered with brains, but he was sick of essentially wearing knee-high socks and shorts all day.

"Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas."

"Well… we've found it."

"It was never really lost," the Doctor shrugged with a sly grin on his face. "But according to your Doctor's letter this was one of the places he wanted to visit. In another hundred years or so this place will be swarming with archeologists, I'm sure he wanted to visit before that happened."

"You think the Doc sent us that message?"

"Hard to know, but it's possible."

"Hey, before we go any further… is any of that radiation around?"

The Doctor took out his 3D glasses and looked around the site. "Hm…"

"Is that a bad 'hm'?"

"I can't see any radiation, but… well, here," he handed the glasses to Marty, who put them on for the first time, not entirely sure what he was supposed to see. The entire landscape was suddenly filled with colours and shapes that he didn't have a chance of understanding, but the mountain Machu Picchu lay on was completely black.

"It's not supposed to be black, is it?" He handed the glasses back to the Doctor.

"It's almost as if… it isn't there."

"Well we're standing on it."

"We need to investigate."

"Of course we do…" Marty sighed, but a small part of him felt a thrill of excitement.

"Look," the Doctor bent down. There were deep gashes in the earth, footprints left from something heavy.

"I really hope those aren't robot footprints," Marty groaned.

"Only one way to find out!"

They followed the footprints as they wound through the ruins, until they stopped at an opening that led into the earth. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver for light and they continued down. The hall was made of stone, and the footprints were gone, but the hall went straight and they were certain if the person had gone down here, they were still tracking them.

Then, the hall stopped.

"What now?"

The Doctor took out the psychic paper.

"This is it, the exact coordinates."

"And the exact time?"

"Give it second," he looked at Marty with mischievous eyes…

Suddenly there was a loud crashing noise somewhere outside and the hall was lit up with white light. Marty shielded his eyes then heard the noise of rocks scraping against each other.

He looked at the dead end and it twitched and then slowly started sliding open.

"Good timing, Doc… for once…"

The doorway opened and the two stepped inside to the low room. Lit torches were hung around the walls and at the far end a figure stood with the back to the entrance.

It was a woman with a mane of dark curly blonde hair wearing tight-fitting clothes. She slowly turned around, a bright smile on her face. She looked directly at the Doctor, whose face had become very grave.

"River," he whispered…

"Hello Sweetie."

**To Be Continued…**

(So on my account I put up a poll on what characters people might like to see. People like Clara Brown got votes, which sincerely surprised me, but no one voted for River Song. I don't know how most people really feel about this character, but I quite like her. So hopefully you'll enjoy her cameo!)


	2. Time Loop

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 2

"Am I missing something?" Marty looked back and forth between the smiling face of the – rather good-looking, he had to admit – middle aged woman, and the concerned face of the Doctor. He could tell almost instantly that the two knew each other, but from their completely different reactions he could neither tell how well they knew each other nor what their relationship was.

"You sure took your sweet time getting here."

Marty felt the heavy weight of disappointment. So it was this woman who had sent them the message, and not Doc Brown after all.

"Hey, we came here the exact time we were told to – not that we had to. You don't think we had other things to do?" Marty couldn't help but feel annoyed with this woman. He shouldn't have gotten his hopes up like that.

"Hm, who's this?" River purred. "Not your usual carry-on luggage."

"What did you call me?"

"What is this?" The Doctor demanded. "What's going on?"

"This," River motioned around the room, "is an emergency."

Marty quickly surveilled the bare stone walls and low ceiling around them. There were two thin paths out of the room on the far side, on either side of River, and the main entrance they had come out of. There were not, however, any killer robots, angry aliens or mindless zombies coming at them, so as far as he was concerned this was a step up in the emergency department.

"I think we can handle some cool ruins."

"These _cool_ ruins are not the problem," she looked at the Doctor and her smile finally faded as she took in the expression on the Doctor's face. "You don't look too happy to see me."

"Doc, who is this chick?"

"Professor River Song," she held out her hand for Marty to shake and stepped forward. "And you are?"

"Uh, Marty McFly."

"Marty McFly?" She looked like she was searching her memory. "Oh right, the boy with the DeLorean."

"How did you…?"

"The Doctor's told me all about you. You're much cuter than I imagined. I'm starting to see why he took such a shining to you."

"Uh…" Marty felt slightly uncomfortable, not entirely certain if he got what she was saying and eagerly trying to dismiss it. "Well he's never mentioned you before."

"There's nothing to tell," the Doctor started looking around the room for any clues as to why he might have been needed there. He was not ecstatic to see River again. The last – and first – time he had met her had been a jarring experience and seeing her suddenly alive and smiling in front of him after watching her die was… unsettling to say the least.

River looked hurt by the Doctor's glib remark for a split second, but then smiled even wider. "I suppose he's not the most talkative of men."

"Are you two, uh…?" Marty started asking, but was quickly cut off.

"Tell us why you've brought us here," the Doctor snapped.

"Because I'm trapped in a time loop. I thought I could handle it myself, but, well… This is the 10th cycle and I haven't gotten anywhere."

"A time what?" Marty, once again, found himself completely out of his depth.

"How did you create a time loop?" The Doctor's face was turning from annoyance to worry.

"I didn't do it. I found it and came to investigate it… unfortunately I got myself trapped instead."

"Trapped in what? The door's open, just-" Marty went to point out the main entrance, but his hand was stopped by an invisible wall where the door had been. "Uh…"

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the entrance. "You can't go through it, the time out there as we perceive it has essentially stopped. You don't have enough force to break through."

"Break through what? Will someone please explain what's going on?"

"Every 63 minutes time in these ruins restarts. Think of it like re-watching a movie. All the events play over and over again, completely unchanged from the last time you saw it," River explained.

"That black spot we saw earlier wasn't nothing, it was the area affected by the time loop. We walked into a trap."

"How do we get out of this trap?"

"It's slightly impossible," River admitted.

"Yes, but only slightly," the Doctor tried to smile.

"Wait a minute Doc… are you trying to tell me we could be stuck here… forever?"

The Doctor glared at River. "Essentially."

"Would you rather I rotted in this place alone?"

"You can't die in a time loop."

"Fine then. Would you rather I went mad?"

"Go back to the part about not being able to die," Marty interrupted before their bickering could go any further.

"Oh, you can die. I've already been killed seven times in here, but when the time loop restarts, so do you. It's a brilliant little reset button."

"Killed by what?" The Doctor narrowed his eyes.

"We're not alone."

"Who else is here?"

"A little boy, a native who lives nearby. He's been in the time loop since it began, meaning his memory restarts as well every 63 minutes. Makes life a little frustrating."

"But your memory doesn't restart?" Marty asked, not wanting his own brain to be wiped.

"No, and neither will yours. We've added ourselves to the loop, and anything not part of the original template won't be affected the same way."

"But it wasn't the boy who killed you," the Doctor got back on topic.

"No. He followed and strange man and his family in here with his sister – though I can't find any of those people so I don't know if they're trapped as well. And then… there's the robot."

"Of course there is," Marty sighed.

"Did it actually kill you, or freeze you in time?"

"I was hardly in any kind of state to tell. The second it would happen I'd be back here to second zero. How many times have you encountered this kind of robot so far?"

"We've been fighting a bit of a robot infestation lately. Didn't I ever mentioned _that_ to you?" The Doctor wished he could stop feeling annoyed with River, but every time he looked at her he saw her lifeless body and could hear her soft voice whispering his true name into his ear…

"You _are_ in a strange mood today," River muttered.

"Maybe I don't like being tricked into entering a time loop."

"I wasn't tricking you. Your psychic paper is hardly the most reliable message delivery service."

"What else do we have to look forward to in this time loop?"

"An earthquake, and some kind of an explosion. All I can tell is that the explosion is what put all of this into motion."

"That's what happened right before the doors opened," Marty recalled the sound and the bright flash of white light.

"Wherever that explosion happened, that's where we need to go," the Doctor explained.

"Yes, and there's some good news and bad news about that."

"Go on."

"The good news is that the boy I told you about saw it happen. He knows exactly where to go and can lead us there."

"I don't think I want to hear the bad news," Marty winced.

"You don't. The bad news is that before we can ever get there, we run into that damn robot."

"And that's when the dying happens?"

"Oh yes, that's when a lot of dying happens."

**To Be Continued…**

(I don't like giving stuff about the story away, spoilers being evil and all that, but with the untimely death of Elizabeth Sladen – the actress who brilliantly portrayed Sarah Jane Smith – I thought I should probably address the people who have been asking whether or not Sarah Jane'll be appearing in this story. The long and short of it is: no. I love the character of Sarah Jane, but I didn't feel she was right for this story when I made the initial outline and I don't want to jam her into the story in some two-bit attempt to honour Mrs. Sladen. I hope you guys understand my position on the matter. While I'm at it, I'm going to say that the Brigadier will not be appearing either. I will be featuring UNIT in a future episode, but because it will take place in 2015 it wouldn't make any sense for the Brigadier to be there – as the character, like the actor, is most certainly deceased by this year. I hope this doesn't put some of you off from reading this story, your reviews really mean a lot to me and I will try to make this story great even without these characters making an appearance.)


	3. A Cry in the Dark

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 3

"So we only have 63 minutes to stop a time loop?" Marty asked.

"A bit closer to 50 now," River frowned.

"Then we're wasting time," the Doctor looked slightly annoyed. "Which way?"

"This way," River grabbed a torch and hurriedly went down the right-hand passage. "I didn't find him until the second time I went through the loop."

The path became less carved and angular and soon devolved into a normal cave. The Incas must have built upon an existing cave system.

It didn't take long before they heard a voice echoing through the cave.

"Help! Help!" A little voice cried out in the dark.

There was a gap in the cave floor, a space between the rocks that could easily swallow a few humans whole, and it was in there they save the small boy.

"Here," River handed Marty the torch.

"Help me! Please, I'm stuck!" The boy's tiny arm reached up to them from the dark.

"We're coming!" River shouted down.

"Where's the robot?" Marty was looking around wildly, shoving the torch into any shadowy area it could reach.

"We have a few minutes, trust me," River said as she began climbing down into the chasm.

"What do we do?" Marty asked the Doctor.

"Just be on the lookout and get ready to run," the Doctor said quickly and started following River down.

"Wait!" Marty called after him. "I hate this plan!"

"Decided to help out?" River looked up at the Doctor climbing down after her and smiled.

"I figured if we ever wanted to get out of here we'd need to use our time wisely."

River and the Doctor both reached the boy.

"I'm stuck," he squirmed around, pointing at his foot. It was jammed between two rocks.

"All right, grab him under the arms and pull when I tell you," River ordered and went to the boy's foot.

"We need to get out of here," the boy was crying. "I saw a fire and I can't find my sister."

"The explosion."

"You need to bring us to this fire so we can put it out," the Doctor tried to sound as friendly as possible.

"I want to go home," he wept.

"Pull him," River said and the Doctor pulled the little boy up as River got his foot out. He screamed is pain, but it was soon over and then he buried his tearstained face into the Doctor's suit jacket. "We have to move Doctor."

River started climbing.

"Hold on tight," the Doctor whispered and he began scaling the wall.

Marty was staring down at them, looking just as worried as ever, but the robot was still nowhere to be seen.

"We need to go back the way we came," River explained.

"But don't we have to keep going this way?"

"Not unless you want to fight your robot."

"Marty, we might not stay dead here, but if we keep dying we'll never stop the loop. We need to backtrack and hide ourselves."

"Are you sure the robot came from deeper in the ruins though?" Marty couldn't stand the idea of backtracking, not in this kind of situation.

River paused, as though the idea had never occurred to her before.

"I've always tried to reach the site of the explosion. I thought I'd try things differently this time."

"Is this really the time and place to be having this argument?" The Doctor asked, still cradling the small child.

"Hey kid," Marty said gently to the child. "Can you take us to where you saw this fire?"

The little boy looked at Marty, noticing him for the first time. He was very thin, possibly malnourished, with dark tanned skin and wide brown eyes, glistening in the firelight from his tears. He wiped his face with his hand and nodded.

"Is there more than one way there? Have you been here before?"

He nodded. "There's only one way."

"I'm telling you, that robot will be here any minute."

The Doctor looked down the dark unknown cave. "We could run, but if the robot chases us we'll never get to where we need to go."

"Exactly."

"I'm telling you, we need to go back!"

The Doctor looked at Marty, pleading with his eyes. Marty could tell neither of these choices were good ones to make, but at least this way they might have more time to figure things out and for the first time on their journey time seemed more imperative than ever.

"All right, let's run. Let's go!"

Marty was completely unnerved running through the ancient Inca caves. Maybe they couldn't die – or stay dead – but what was to say they couldn't still be frozen in time? This was a time loop. They essentially were frozen, just the same as Jennifer. That's when Marty remembered the phone in his pocket, the strange one the Doctor had given him and he wondered if he could still use it to call to the outside. He needed it to work. He needed some sort of reassurance that he still existed in the world.

"What's that?" The Doctor suddenly stopped and looked around the dimly lit hall. They were back in the finely carved ruins.

"What's what?" Marty pulled up, but could hear nothing.

"Did you hear something?" River asked, narrowing her eyes.

"I thought I heard… well, it almost sounded like digging," the Doctor shrugged.

"Digging?"

They all looked down at their feet and somewhere in the distance they could just make out the faint noise of something large scratching against rock.

"Hey kid, there aren't any tunnels below us… are there?" Marty asked meekly.

They boy looked frightened. "They're harder to get to, but sometimes me and my sister go there… They're right beneath."

"We may be in for some company," River pulled a sidearm out of a hip-holster.

"I don't suppose you have an extra one of those," Marty looked hopefully.

"Just get behind me darling, I'll take care of you."

"Gee, I feel so much better n-"

The floor cracked beneath their feet and they all jumped back as the floor crumbled into the pitch black beneath. Suddenly a shiny and all too familiar figure of a robot burst through.

The Doctor and the boy went flying, landing hard on the Doctor's back. River stood between Marty, who fell to his knees, and the robot who immediately turned to the Doctor and began to speak in its mechanical voice.

"The Doctor. Time Lord. Subject Acquired."

River began shooting, trying to distract it, but the bullets didn't even make it shudder. The robot aimed its weapon at the Doctor and opened fire.

**To Be Continued…**

(I know these chapters are really short, but there's are two good reasons for that. The first is what you already know: I'm travelling a lot and without knowing how much time I'll have to actually sit down and write a chapter, I'm trying to be as economical as possible. The second is a bit of a secret, but needless to say I'm being a little lazy this time around. All will make sense in chapter 7.)


	4. Trampled Underfoot

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 4

Marty jumped up from his crouched position behind River and bulldozed himself into the robot. He wouldn't have been enough of a force to knock the robot over normally, but it was just close enough to the chasm it had created to teeter and fall in.

"Doctor!" Marty called to the dazed Time Lord, who moaned and struggled to get back to his feet, scooping the now unconscious boy into his arms.

The Doctor and the boy now stood on the other side of the hole, cut off from Marty, River and the hall that led back to the caves.

Beneath them they could hear the whirring gears of the robot as it pushed itself back up.

"Jump!" River called to the Doctor.

"We won't make it!"

"What choice do you have? The robot's found us, there's no point going back to the beginning!"

The Doctor weighed his choices in his head, then backed up to make a running start. Marty and River both leaned forward to catch him, their toes just inching over the side of the hole. Marty couldn't help but look down.

The robot was back on its feet, looking straight up at Marty, its red eyes practically glaring at him.

"Martin McFly." It whined in a threatening voice just as the Doctor leaped over its head.

Marty barely saw the robot move, but suddenly it was halfway up the hole, reaching out for the Doctor and grabbing his leg.

River caught him as he landed, but the robot jerked him back and the Doctor fell to the ground, losing his grip on the boy. He screamed out, did everything he could to grasp for him, but before he could pull him out of harms way, the robot climbed up and its foot landed on the boy's back.

"Leave him!" River ordered.

"What!" The Doctor was too disgusted to believe she had just told him that. She pulled him along and Marty watched on in horror as the boy was crushed to death. His eyes snapped open and he gasped in pain, but no air could enter his collapsed lungs.

The sight was nearly too horrible to take, but he managed to remind himself of the situation they were in. This wasn't the first time this boy had died. It might not be the last. They were in a time loop, and the only way to stop him from dying was to put an end to this.

The Doctor was still struggling against River, who pulled something out of a pouch in her belt and tossed it to Marty with one hand.

"Catch!"

Marty turned just in time to catch the small metal object. He had seen enough action movies to recognize a grenade when he saw one. River couldn't pull the pin while wrestling with the Doctor, so Marty did it for her and tossed it at the robot.

"Subject acquired."

"Your damn right it is," Marty spat, turning to run as fast as he could. Even the Doctor knew there was no other option and all three ran down the hall as the concussive blast went off.

The weakened ground beneath the robot gave way and he tumbled down again, followed by half the mountain above him. Marty could feel the wind of the boulders falling behind him, but dared not look back to see how close they were. He kept running, dropping the torch as he went, only a pace or two behind River and the Doctor.

Finally the noise of the crashing rocks died down and the three time travellers slowed to a stop, catching their breath.

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver, and sent a beam of light around the cave. Behind there was still a small enough opening to crawl through, but the hall had been completely destroyed, hopefully cutting off the lower passageway as it was now covered in boulders.

"We will save him next time," River said somberly and Marty again saw the fear in the boy's eyes before his life was squeezed out of him.

The Doctor took a step towards her, his height menacingly hanging over her. "You claim to know me so well, but you don't know me at all."

"Sometimes there have to be compromises-"

"Not with life!"

River said nothing, simply turned away and looked down the path that led deep into the caves.

"Especially with life," she said quietly, almost to herself, then walked into the dark.

**To Be Continued…**

(I wasn't particularly fond of writing this chapter. Gore and violence is one thing, but this honestly made me feel a little… disturbed with myself afterwards. This pretty much explains the general lack of detail here. Writing River on the other hand is an interesting challenge. So little is known about her at this point that she's really a blank slate, one that I hesitate to write anything on for fear of having it contradicted in the coming weeks/years. So yeah, lack of detail all around today. How's my writing? Call: 1-800-TIM-WAST)


	5. The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 5

"Now what?" Marty asked meekly.

"We move on," River turned back to them. "The earthquake's due pretty soon and I'd rather not get trapped in it again. We need to make it a safe distance away."

Marty felt around for the torch, but it was long gone in the cave in. River however, who seemed ridiculously prepared for everything, pulled out a large flashlight and shined it in Marty's face.

"Come along darlings," she smiled, the argument she had just had with the Doctor seemingly completely forgotten.

The Doctor was still sullen though, and clearly not wanting to depend on her kept out his much smaller sonic screwdriver and hung back and little. Marty couldn't take it anymore. He needed to know what was going on between these two people.

Once he was sure River was out of hearing distance he came alongside the Doctor.

"Can I ask who she is?" He kept his voice at a whisper.

"I don't know," he replied curtly.

"Well you've obviously met her before. C'mon Doc, something's up. I've never seen you act this way around someone before."

His eyes soften slightly as he turned to Marty. "I honestly don't know who she really is. She's barely more than a name to me. I've only met her once before, but…"

"But what?"

"She's known me her whole life, knows things about me no one could know unless, well, that's not important. Being a time traveller, you don't always meet people in the right order."

"Okay, fair enough. I'd be a little weirded out if I met some chick who knew a bunch of my secrets, but that can't be all there is. Tell me what's nagging at you."

The Doctor stopped walking, letting River go on slightly ahead of them.

"She can't know what I'm about to tell you."

"Uh, okay…"

"No, I really mean this Marty. I don't know what it would do to her if she found out."

"Okay Doc, I promise."

"When I met her before, it was the first time I had ever seen her… but it was the last time she saw me. She died."

"Whoa… that's heavy Doc."

"Every time I look at her I see it happen all over again."

"Yeah but, she's not dead. She's right there."

"That doesn't change the fact that I failed her, or am going to in her future anyway. I'm so important to her, but when she needed me the most…"

"What are you boys doing back there?" River called back to them, her voice echoing around the cave.

"We're trying to figure out what to do," the Doctor yelled back and River started walking over to them.

"The cave goes on this way for another mile, I'd say," River explained. "After that it splits off into six separate caves – that I've found anyway. I've managed to do some preliminary searches of the left three."

"So what? We just spelunk around in a cave for god knows how long?" Marty asked.

"Without a guide, yes. We have to make the most of our time before everything restarts. We should really be moving as we discuss this."

The three of them started walking. The ground here was uneven, keeping their pace rather slow. Holes opened up all around them, not large enough to fall through, but certainly large enough to break your ankle in if you weren't careful.

"How far did you make it into the first three caves?" The Doctor asked.

"I just kept walking until the time loop would restart."

"Were you scanning for anything? The explosion probably didn't leave any visible marks, at least not ones you'd see in a dark cave."

"Of course I was, sweetie. I'm not some two-bit explorer you met at a five and dime."

"I don't know where I met you," the Doctor's eyes were still distant as he looked at her, but he wasn't trying to be confrontational anymore. Now he was just stating a fact.

"Spoilers," River chimed merrily.

"Yes, just what the world needs, more secrets between people," Marty sighed.

"Don't feel left out, I know lots of spoilers about you too," River winked.

"Hey, spoil me all you want."

"As adorable as you are, you're a little young for me."

Before Marty could make any sort of a comeback something started beeping and River looked at her watch.

"Damn, we only have one minute before the earthquake."

"Are we far enough in?"

"We're going to found out soon," they quickened their pace. A broken ankle seemed far more preferable at that moment that being crushed in an earthquake.

Marty knew death would just send them back to the beginning of the time loop, but he was still pretty sure he'd feel the pain involved before any of that happened.

In the distance, they could hear a rumbling, and the mountain they were in suddenly felt like some giant stretching after a long rest.

"Tell me this isn't a bad earthquake."

"Do you suppose there's some sort of a good earthquake?"

The ground seemed to snap and all three fell to the ground. They fought to get up, everything shaking around them now as they tried to run. It was like trying to run on top of a speeding train.

Marty could hear loud objects falling here and there, but the two beams of light bounced around so much he could barely make out anything around him, just the direction he needed to run in.

Then, Marty's foot was caught in one of the holes and he felt himself falling to the ground and in the blackness a boulder managed to find him, knocking him unconscious.

**To Be Continued…**

(You may be happy to know that I'll be home this week – or you may not have even noticed that I was travelling while writing and uploading these last six chapters with a great amount of headache. Either way, this means I'll have a lot more time to fine tune things and make them a little longer. I'm really proud that I managed to get any of them done, but that's one of the nice things about being on a train so much.)


	6. A Crack in the Air

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 6

Marty woke up with River's flashlight staring him in the face. It lay on the ground, same as him, without any sign of River or the Doctor. His head felt like it had been split open, but as he felt around with his fingers he realized he had little more than a cut.

All around him were scattered rocks, but behind him they were piled up high enough to block any passage. River and the Doctor were either trapped behind those – or underneath them. He was dizzy and completely disoriented. He couldn't tell if the path open to him was the one he had come from or not or how long he had been unconscious. All he really knew was that he had to keep going. He grabbed the flashlight and went to get up.

Pushing himself back to his feet was agony. Old and new wounds alike screamed in pain and the slightest movement made his head pound. He felt the urge to vomit for a moment, but finally managed to steady himself.

The ground seemed even more unsteady than it had been before the earthquake, but he found his footing with the small beam of light and wondered how much time he had left before the loop restarted. He realized with grim satisfaction that his new wounds would disappear too, it almost made him want to stop and wait for it to happen, but he knew he had to accomplish _something_ while he was on his own.

It wasn't long before the cave expanded and a set of tunnels opened before him. How many had River said she had explored already? It was hard to call up the memory. It was hard to think, point blank. Two or three? He decided to play it safe and went down the fourth tunnel from the left.

It was lower than the others and he had to crouch down to get through it, tensing his muscles and making his headache even worse. It was also narrow, growing narrower every foot. It wasn't long before the side brushed his arms and he wondered if he'd even be able to go on much longer. He couldn't judge how long it went on either, because it twisted and turned, descending ever lower into the depth of the earth.

Then, he heard it, soft sobbing in the dark.

He almost missed it at first, it was so quiet the sounds of his footsteps covered it, but when he stopped a moment to squeeze himself through a tight spot in the tunnel he could just make it out.

The cries were definitely coming from in front of him, and they sounded like they might belong to a child.

After that narrow point the tunnel began to widen again and soon he was walking upright. Then, the tunnel forked. Either way was a gamble and he couldn't tell which way the sobs were coming from.

"Hello?" He called into the tunnels.

The sobs stopped a moment.

"Can you hear me?" He called again.

"Y-yes," a tiny voice answered him, the voice of a little girl.

"Where are you?" He asked, instantly realizing it was a stupid question, so added: "Are you stuck?"

"No," she called back, and this time sounded a little closer.

"Can you make it to my voice?"

"I'm coming!" She was starting to sound excited and after a breathless moment a small girl ran out of the right tunnel. She looked similar to the little boy, but much smaller. His sister, he imagined. Tears stained her dark skin and Marty saw she carried no flashlight or torch. She had been completely alone in the dark.

Without slowing down she launched herself at Marty, wrapping her thin arms around his legs and she restarted sobbing into his jeans.

"Hey," he put his hand on her head. "It's all right. Don't be scared, okay?"

"I can't find my brother," her voice was muffled.

He knew there was no point in upsetting her further by telling her the truth.

"I'm sure he hasn't gone far. Maybe we can find him," he turned to look back the way he had come. There was no point in going back. "Did you see the explosion too?"

She looked up at him and slowly nodded.

"Was it down one of these caves?"

She nodded again.

He wasn't entirely sure what he was even looking for, the Doctor had said it might not have left anything visible enough for him to see in the dark, but that wasn't going to stop him at this point.

"Okay," he crouched down, and put a hand on the girl's bony shoulder. She was shaking a little. "It's really important you take me where it happened. We will find your brother, but I have to see this place first – or we're never gonna get out of here."

He could tell she couldn't really understand, her eyes were filled with more fear than understanding, but she slowly nodded.

"I wanna go home," she breathed.

"I'll take you home, real soon. I promise."

He hoped he wasn't lying.

Marty picked her up, the strain making him grit his teeth in pain, but he could barely feel her weight in his arms. He pointed the flashlight down the tunnels.

"Left or right?"

She pointed towards the left tunnel and he dutifully went forward.

"Is it far?" He was positive any second he would blink and suddenly be back at the entrance with River and the Doctor.

"It's close to the low caves."

"Low caves?" He wondered if she meant the caves that the robot had dug his way out of.

She nodded. "We go there sometimes. They're more fun."

The flashlight seemed to be growing brighter, but he knew that couldn't be the case. He clicked it off and there was a strange white glow coming from the distance. There was something ahead.

He turned the flashlight back on and continued as the light ahead grew brighter. Soon he didn't even need the flashlight and then, he saw it.

At first he thought it was on the cave wall, but quickly realized it was just floating in the air, as though someone had hung it from the ceiling. A thin line of white – as thin as hair – but so bright he could barely look straight at it. He didn't have to be a doctor of anything to know it was something unnatural, something that shouldn't have existed in this world, or any.

"What is it?" The little girl whispered in amazement.

"I have no idea… but definitely what we were looking for."

**To Be Continued…**

(For those of you still playing the number game, the reason why I picked 63 minutes over 42 is because there's a Doctor Who episode that's already done it! Series Three, Episode Seven. The episode's even titled "42." I'm sure this wasn't a coincidence.)


	7. The Low Caves

Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 7

River didn't lose consciousness. She felt herself falling, rocks falling before her, next to her, on her, but she managed to stay awake through it all. When the ground finally settled down and the earthquake ended she was completely enveloped in darkness, but she could move around and she could sit up.

"Is anyone there?" She spoke to the dark and heard someone sitting up, letting out a pained sigh, one that she knew all too well.

"River, where are you?" The Doctor felt around the dark, but found nothing but rocks.

"Right here, sweetie," she moved towards him and her hands found his coat. She wanted to pull him close to her, embrace him, but she stopped herself, knowing with an unfathomable sadness that she couldn't.

"Marty?"

River fished in her belt and pulled out a small flashlight that fit into the palm of her hand. She shined it around the small clearing they were in, but Marty was nowhere to be seen. The Doctor got a slightly frantic look on his face as he imagined the teenager crushed between the rocks.

"He's all right," River started looking for a way out.

"How can you possibly know that?"

"I don't, but wherever he is we'll find him once the time loop restarts."

"How much longer do we have?"

"15 or 20 minutes, my watch is broken."

"We're not in the same cave," the Doctor remarked.

"No, we fell down a level."

"You mean to the level the robot was in?"

"Let's not think about that. Ah," she smiled, she found a hole large enough for the two of them to crawl through. "Come along darling."

"Wait," the Doctor was still looking for his sonic screwdriver. He had lost his grip on it sometime as they had fallen.

River quickly shined her light around the clearing until it picked up a metallic glint. The Doctor grinned and reached for his trusty tool, but his smile quickly faded. It had been crushed under a rock, smashed the pieces.

"Oh no, I liked this one. I can't replace it, it made just the right kind of whirr."

"Don't be so dramatic, you'll get it back in a few minutes."

"Oh right," he grinned. "Having a restart button isn't such a bad thing sometimes."

"C'mon," River sighed and began crawling through the small tunnel, the Doctor following behind.

They crawled for an agonizingly long time in the winding tunnel, certainly for more than ten minutes. Sometimes it would widen a little, but more often than not they were squeezing themselves between fallen boulders and were constantly worried that any second the tunnel would lose its hold and tumble down on them.

Finally the rocks ended and they found themselves in a hall, straight cut walls, and stood trying to get their bearings. There were still fallen rocks all around them, but now they had no trouble moving unhindered. They had no idea what way they had gone though.

"Well, we must have gone back towards the entrance if we're out of the cave," the Doctor thought out loud.

"I wouldn't be so certain. These aren't the same tunnels we were in before. There could be a lot more to these ruins than we knew about."

"Well there's nowhere to go but forward from here."

Suddenly there was another rumbling, the sound of rocks falling and scraping against each other echoed around the hall.

"Aftershocks?"

River narrowed her eyes and took out her gun. "This is new."

"Time traveller detected," the robotic voice sounded distant, but close enough. The Doctor sighed in annoyance. There was nowhere for them to run.

"What were you saying about it freezing people, Doctor?" River held her flashlight against the barrel, which was pointing straight down the tunnel.

"It's stealing time energy. What worries me is what will happen if it freezes us in a time loop. We might not necessarily restart with the rest of it."

"Then I hope your boy knows what he's doing."

The Doctor thought about Marty, useful in a tight spot but not the most scientifically minded person he had ever met. He winced a little as he saw the red eyes of the robot coming towards them.

"I'm hardly giving up here," he reached down a picked up a rock. A machine was just a machine at the end of the day and a rock could certainly smash one to bits if it had the right amount of force behind it… or at the very least he might be able to distract while they managed to get around it and escape.

"I'll aim high, you go low," River aimed her gun at the robots eyes.

"River Song." The robot whirred. "Subject acquired."

**To Be Continued in Episode Six: Restart**

(And now the truth is revealed! This is a two parter! I wrestled with whether or not I should actually split up my two parters, seeing how in the literary world I'm not constrained by time limits, but I decided to do 13 episodes in the Doctor Who style and I'm going to honour that. I didn't have as much time to work on the chapters as I thought it would, as I was still settling back into my routine and running around to go on errands I had put off while away, so the last two chapters ended up being quite short as well. Hopefully next week everything will be back to normal and I'll be able to give the proper amount of attention to this story. All right, see you next weekend for part two!)


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